Rukie Paputchi's lawyer cites flaws in government's deportation case

Sunday

Jan 27, 2008 at 12:01 AM

Rukie Paputchi may be sitting in the Pike County jail awaiting deportation to Bulgaria, but she has something to be grateful for— an attorney who is not going to give up on her case under any circumstances, even if she is forced to leave the United States.

KIETRYN ZYCHAL

Rukie Paputchi may be sitting in the Pike County jail awaiting deportation to Bulgaria, but she has something to be grateful for — an attorney who is not going to give up on her case under any circumstances, even if she is forced to leave the United States.

Philadelphia area attorney Ted Murphy represents Paputchi and her husband, Zack, in the latest chapter of their 17-year odyssey to become permanent U.S. residents. A turning point in their drama occurred Jan. 7, when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Rukie at her home in Sciota on a deportation warrant. She could be sent back to Bulgaria in a matter of weeks, despite the fact that she is the mother of two U.S.-born children, ages 14 and 5.

"I am not stopping," Murphy said. "Rukie deserves for the law to be applied fairly in her case," Murphy said.

Murphy is a former immigration prosecutor who left government work for private practice three months ago.

"I worked for 10 years with the Joint Terrorism Task Force deporting hardened criminals and other nefarious people in order to keep our streets and citizens safe. I was tired of seeing problems like this happen — good people who are victimized by government delay. Cases like this are part of the reason I left government," he said.

The Paputchis own Old Mill Pizzeria on Route 209 in Sciota. They came to the United States legally in 1990 and stayed with a relative, Mike Zimmer.

"The situation in Bulgaria was bad," Zimmer said. "It might have gone the same way as Yugoslavia. I invited many of my relatives to come here in case something happened over there."

Zimmer came to the United States in 1973 because he was sponsored by an American citizen from Stroudsburg. Today, Zimmer owns a restaurant called Original Doughboys in Wind Gap.

The Paputchis were ethnic and religious minorities, Turkish Muslims in a country that was predominantly Slavic and Christian. They had experienced persecution in Bulgaria and did not want to live through it again.

"In 1984, the army surrounded our village, Hvostane," Paputchi said. "They came with machine guns and tanks. They went house to house and demanded that we change our names to Bulgarian names. They locked the doors of the mosque and told us to stop going there." The village was home to about 600 people.

Rukie and Zack came to the United States legally as a married couple in June 1990, but Rukie returned home a few months later without Zack because her mother was ill. Zack applied for asylum in November of 1990. Two years later, Rukie was again able to join him in Pennsylvania on a legal visa. She also applied for asylum in April 1993, the same year she gave birth to her son, Hasim.

Four years later, Rukie Paputchi was granted asylum on Sept. 22, 1997, and for three weeks she may have thought her journey was almost over. But the government appealed that decision on Oct. 15, 1997. A month later, on Nov. 19, 1997, President Clinton signed into law the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA). According to Murphy, that law should have allowed the Paputchis to stay in the United States legally had they known about it.

"The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued memorandums in 1998 and 1999 setting forth the obligation of the government to notify individuals of benefits enacted under NACARA," Murphy said.

"Zack and Rukie are not at fault. They came here legally. They filed for protection while they were in legal status. And while their cases were winding their way through the maze of the immigration system, Congress passed a new law extending the benefits of permanent residence to people who had fled civil wars in Central America and communism in Eastern Europe. But nobody in the government notified Zack and Rukie of the law, and they had an obligation to do so," Murphy said.

IN THE 17 years the Paputchis have been trying to file the correct paperwork and keep on top of their immigration case, they paid $25,000 in legal fees to two private attorneys before hiring Murphy this month. They have outlived the INS itself. INS was shifted from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and renamed ICE.

Another failure of both the government and the private attorneys is the fact that Zack and Rukie's cases should have been joined because they were husband and wife.

"Since 1997, Zack has been eligible under NACARA for permanent residence, and Rukie would be eligible because she is married to him," Murphy said.

One more error that Murphy points out is the failure of the government to write regulations to enact NACARA. "First, Congress passes a law. Then somebody has to write regulations on how to enact that law. But, here we are, 11 years later, and the regulations still have not been written."

Sloppy paperwork on the part of the government also played a part in the Paputchi's nightmare. In June 2001, the BIA adjudicated Zack's case, allowing him to stay in the United States while "administratively closing" his file. However, the government sent the letter to the wrong address. His attorney didn't learn of the decision until a year later.

"The irony is that if they had reviewed Zack's case between November 1997, when NACARA was enacted, up through June, 2001, when the board administratively closed his case, they would have seen that he was eligible for relief. And Rukie would never have been in this place," Murphy said. "They'd be citizens by now."

In August 2002, a Bureau of Immigration Appeals judge took away Rukie's asylum status which she had had for five years, and she was ordered to leave the country within 30 days. She was four months pregnant. Rukie asked for an extension, and was told she would have to leave by Jan. 22, 2003. On Jan. 24, 2003, she gave birth to a daughter, Elise. She stayed with her family.

"It's Kafka-esque," Murphy said, referring to the stories of Franz Kafka, a communist era writer. "The character K waits at the door asking permission to come in and at the end of the story he's told that he didn't ask the right question," Murphy said.

If Rukie is sent to Bulgaria, it could take 10 years for her to be allowed to return to the United States.

In the midst of the terror of losing a wife and mother, the Paputchi family and Murphy have found something to laugh about in their shared love of pizza.

Murphy explained. "I won a pizza-eating contest when I was a senior at Georgetown University. I ate one medium deep-dish pizza and five small deep-dish pizzas in 15 minutes. The prize was a free pizza a day for the rest of the year," he said. "Pizzera Uno fed me for an entire semester."

If Ted Murphy can get Zack Paputchi's wife out of this 17-year mess, you can believe Paputchi will give him a pizza a day for the rest of his life.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

To send letters of support for Rukie Paputchi:

Bureau of Immigration Appeals

c/o Theodore J. Murphy, Esq.

Klasko, Rulon, Stock & Seltzer LLP

1800 John F. Kennedy Blvd. Suite 1700

Philadelphia, PA 19103

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter

711 Hart Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Phone: (202) 224-4254

U.S. Sen. Robert Casey

383 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

Phone: (202) 224-6324

Toll Free: (866) 802-2833

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